


One Last Fuck, Courtesy of Joe Dick

by j_s_cavalcante



Category: Hard Core Logo (1996)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Drugs, Dubious Consent, M/M, Rape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-03
Updated: 2010-02-03
Packaged: 2017-10-07 00:00:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/59157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/j_s_cavalcante/pseuds/j_s_cavalcante
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joe Dick had always fucked Billy when he didn't get what he wanted. He fucked Billy behind a bar in Vancouver in 1978, and he fucked Billy in Toronto before Billy left for LA the first time, and in between Joe fucked Billy from one end of Canada to the other, and at selected venues in the States.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Last Fuck, Courtesy of Joe Dick

**Author's Note:**

  * For [moojja](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=moojja).



> The death warning is for the canon one. It's Hard Core Logo: all the usual caveats apply.

 

Billy’s flight had already landed at the Vancouver Airport when he heard. John had had him paged, and he had time to kill before his connecting flight to LA boarded, so he answered.

“Billy, man, you gotta get back here,” John was saying, sounding both sober and sane, neither of which was probably true. Maybe the shock had helped, or maybe, with all the cops and paramedics and people around, maybe somebody had taken John to a doctor. “You gotta be here.”

“He’s gone; he’s really gone?”

“Yeah. I’m…I’m sorry, man.”

Jesus. John said it like Billy was Joe’s next of kin or something, and he wasn’t, not by a long shot. He said it like Joe was Billy’s friend, and Billy didn’t think that was true, either. Friends didn’t threaten to kill you and beat you bloody on stage in front of your fans, did they? Friends didn’t take themselves _out_ like that, without warning, just because you refused to hang around and let them fuck you over some more.

Friends didn’t want to kill any chance you had for success; they wanted you to be happy.

Billy had never been sure that Joe wanted him to be _happy_. He’d just wanted him to be _with Joe_, stuck in an endless loop of drugs and rebellion and the whole punk scene, and that was not a _happy_ thing. Not even for Joe. After all these years, Joe still didn’t see that. Until maybe last night.

Fuck. It wasn’t a good revelation to have when you had a gun in your pocket.

“Billy…you okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, John, I’m okay. Look, is someone coming for him?”

“You mean to claim the body, set up a funeral and all that? Yeah, his folks are on their way. The police are checking him, but…Billy…B-bruce was filming when J-joe did it. They couldn’t do anything—it was too fast. But they got it on tape. So the cops say it’s open and shut, a s-s-suicide. Christ, Billy, I saw too much of that, b-back…”

“Yeah, I know,” Billy said quickly. “Me, too.” He and John never talked about that place. Now would be a fucking hell of a bad time to start.

“S-so they’ll release Joe’s body real soon and his parents will probably need a day or so before they bury him. Y-you got plenty of time to get back here.”

Billy rubbed a hand over his face, which hurt, still bruised and cut and now stubbly. “Listen, they’ll be calling my plane soon. You guys are there, his folks are there, the fucking press will be all over it. You don’t need me.”

“B-but Billy. You and Joe were…”

“I know what we were. Fuck, John. This was Joe Dick’s way of fucking me one last time. This was the big one, the final one. Don’t you see? He did this to all of us, every single fucking person who ever heard of him or was stupid enough to ever care about him. Don’t you see that?”

I d-don’t know, Billy, I…” John was starting to sound wobbly, unsure. If somebody’d got him meds, they weren’t doing enough for him.

“Did you see a doctor, John?”

“N-n-n-ot yet.”

“John. Go get help. Go get Pipe to take you to a doctor. Or even better, Bruce or one of his guys. Anybody. Anybody more stable than you, man. Go get help, okay?”

“O-okay, Billy. I…I’m sorry, man.”

“Yeah.” Billy sighed and tapped his fingers absently against the hard black plastic of the phone. His silver ring clattered on it, the ring with the wicked-looking H, identical to the one that was probably still wrapped around Joe’s cold finger. “Bye, John. See you.” Maybe.

He hung up and looked around for a smoking lounge, because he’d lied; there was at least an hour to kill before his plane left. His guitar case was heavy in his hand. Music, he thought. No coke.

Billy needed a fucking drink.

He wasn’t going to have one. He was going to LA.

He was going to play with Jenifur for real. The band had already signed the contract, which was waiting for Billy’s signature in Ed Festus’ LA office. Billy couldn’t be a goddamn drunk when he signed it. He couldn’t be a goddamn drunk again, because there was no one in LA who’d pick him up when he fell. He stood on his own two feet in LA. He’d become a _man_ there.

Not Joe Dick’s fucking _bitch_ anymore. _You hear that, Joe? I’m not your fucking bitch. Never again._

Billy’d told John the truth about the important thing. There really was no point in going back to bury Joe. It wasn’t like Billy was going to fucking _cry_ over him, or anything. Joe must’ve realized that.

There wasn’t anybody who would cry, anyway, except maybe for a few idiotic drugged-out fans who didn’t know him at all. Joe’s parents, his other relatives, none of them would cry for Joe. They were all just happy that he didn’t go by their family name, so maybe people wouldn’t realize he was once their little boy.

Billy’s throat went tight. Fuck. He wasn’t going to cry over Joe Dick the aging, washed-up punk. But for Joe Mulgrew, the kid he used to know…he swallowed hard. There was maybe something there. Shit.

He remembered Joe as he’d first seen him, sitting next to him on a bench at the family courthouse, waiting to go before the judge. Juvenile offenders, both of them. Joe had looked sideways at Billy with the devil in his eye, and Billy read him easily: Joe was going to promise the judge whatever he needed to promise to stay out of there, and then he’d go right back to _offending_, that much smarter about not getting caught. Billy was impressed. Joe had _balls_, goddamn it.

Joe winked at him, and Billy smiled back, and so, even before Joe Mulgrew ever said one word to him, Billy had already been reeled in. They’d been friends from that moment…until last night.

Billy found himself an out-of-the way corner in the lounge and lit up quickly. He pulled his sunglasses down over his eyes. It was better that way, with one of his eyes still swollen from Joe’s fist. He looked at his own knuckles. Fucking shredded. He’d done his share of damage, too. Joe hadn’t gotten in all the good hits.

Wait a minute. Fucking Christ—John said the cops were checking Joe’s body. They’d see the bruises, of course. Maybe they’d call Billy in for questioning? God, he didn’t want to go back there.

After a minute he sighed and sat back. Well, Bruce Fucking McD had the fight in his camera, too. Wasn’t any point in questioning Billy if they could see their answers on film, was there? Anyway, John and Pipe knew where Billy’d gone. Bruce even knew. If the cops called, they called. It wasn’t like Billy was hiding from them.

Maybe he wasn’t hiding from anything any more.

***

It was dawn by the time Billy stumbled into his apartment, stowed his guitar, and got ready for bed. He ended up having a drink after all, because the shakes had set in, and he wasn’t worth a damn when that happened, even after smoking his way through two packs of cigarettes, like he had since he’d left Edmonton.

He had a second drink after he got in bed, because he was goddamn fucking well not going to _cry_, and if he was tearing up it was just the DTs, and he knew how to hold them off. A drink or two, not too much, and then the same thing tomorrow, until he could live with just one, and then maybe some days no drink at all. He could do it if he played for long hours, lost himself in the music. He had to do it.

He’d play till his goddamned fingers bled.

He gulped the rest of the drink and slid down under the covers. He lay awake a while. Too long.

There was just one problem about sleeping. If he closed his eyes he saw Joe Dick’s bloody face, and he really meant _bloody_—with bruises in the exact shape of Billy’s knuckles.

Billy was goddamned lucky he hadn’t broken anything in his hands, because _no fights_—that was in Jenifur’s fucking contract, too. No coke, no fights, no falling down drunk onstage or backstage. No fucking punk friends from Canada visiting backstage. No unnecessary liabilities.

That’s what Joe would’ve been. A fucking liability.

***

Sometimes, in Seattle, when Billy felt most alone—and he couldn’t drink because he had to hang around outside Ed Festus’ office all day, or he had to audition or rehearse for some temporary gig—Billy would feel homesick for Vancouver and Joe’s scowling face. He’d miss the long conversations with Joe in the tour bus when everyone else was sleeping. He’d even miss the fights. It was crazy, it was totally fucked, but it was true.

Then Billy had to go find himself a nameless girl and fuck her till he couldn’t think anymore, so he would stop thinking about the old days on the road with Joe. The old days when Billy was the one who got fucked.

***

“Pussy. You want it. Face it, you want this,” Joe often told Billy when he climbed on top of him and pushed into him. Maybe that wasn’t buddies, but it usually beat the hell out of getting knocked around by Joe’s fists.

Billy could give as good as he got, but usually he didn’t have it in him. He loved music more than he loved fighting with Joe, and if he fucked up his hands, he couldn’t play. So he drank, and if he got more shitfaced than Joe, Billy got fucked up the ass. Simple equation.

Sometimes when he took that one drink too many, he suspected he might be doing it on purpose, because then he wouldn’t have to fight.

It had been going on since…since when, Billy didn’t exactly remember. Maybe that was due to the alcoholic blackouts, or else it was because the first time Joe fucked him they were both about seventeen, and Billy still thought Joe _cared_ about him. Maybe Joe did, in his own screwed up, whacked-out Joe Dick fashion.

***

Blind drunk in an alley, somewhere in Vancouver that Billy couldn’t even remember—that was the first time. Sometimes in a city you remember the smells of a particular place, but there wasn’t even anything distinctive about those that night, just the usual bad smells out in back of a bar and the better smell of sea air trying to clear it all out. So Billy didn’t even remember what bar it was.

They’d played there that night; he remembered that much. They weren’t Hard Core Logo yet, they were the Fuckheads or something. Joe’d made up some stupid name, but Billy didn’t even remember it anymore. Joe’d started nine bands before Hard Core Logo, and Billy was in every one, and they all sucked. He and Joe weren’t even eighteen yet.

Other kids their age were sleeping because they had school the next day, but Joe and Billy were playing music in a bar they weren’t actually legal to set foot inside. The owner looked the other way, and anyway, Joe had faked ID that said he was twenty-one. He looked it, too, big and tough and scruffy with beard. Nobody dared to ID Billy when he was with Joe.

So Billy was freezing his nuts off in that alley with Joe, who was fucking _warm_ when he pressed up against Billy—the only warm thing in the world, as far as Billy was concerned. After Billy’d finished puking his guts out, there Joe was, giving Billy a swig of soda to clear his mouth and pulling him by the coat away from the mess. “C’mere, c’mere, Billy, I know what you need.”

It didn’t make sense, because Billy knew Joe was pissed at him. He had reason. Joe and Billy had really sucked onstage that night, and it was mostly Billy’s fault. He played real easily when he was sober, but tonight there’d been free beer and then some older guy had smuggled him some scotch, too—probably just wanted to see the stupid, skinny kid get pissed drunk; ha ha—so he was shitfaced on stage. His fingers were too loose and wouldn’t do what he told them; he kept losing his place in the music and playing something else.

Joe dragged him back to the restroom on break and threw cold water in his face, forced coffee down his throat, but it didn’t do any good. They ended early and they weren’t paid the full amount, which wasn’t much to begin with, and Joe was furious as hell.

So it didn’t make any sense that Joe was sort of hugging Billy in the alley, trying to warm him up.

“Fuck’s wrong with you, Joe? Give me some air. Can’t you see I had too much?”

“You’re a lightweight, Billy. Had to get that fucking chicken hawk away from you.”

“I wasn’t in any trouble,” Billy said, but he didn’t really know what the fuck he was saying. The guy had seemed okay if a little pushy. Not as pushy as Joe was being now.

“Oh, you weren’t, eh? You’re the chicken he was after, Billy. He wanted your tail feathers.”

“Fuck you, Joe.”

“No, fuck _you_, Billy,” Joe said “Pretty Billy. Sooner or later somebody will. Read the writing on the wall, baby.” He pushed Billy’s face right up against the cool brick wall. It was scratchy, but not uncomfortable. Billy didn’t fucking care.

Billy leaned his forehead against the brickwork and tried to think, but his brain wasn’t working too good. Music was still pounding in his head: he was still hearing guitar sounds racing around, distorted, like the white noise you hear in a seashell. Feedback sounds, too, harsh and hard-edged.

He felt hands on him. Cold. Something was cold. Something was warm. He felt his belt give, his pants slide. He grabbed for them clumsily and missed. Big warm hands touched his ass and held on. _What the fuck?_

“It’s all right, it’s all right, Billy. Easy, just let me.” Joe, behind him, whispering in his ear.

Probably in some part of his brain, Billy knew instinctively what Joe meant, but the part that was trying to _think_ didn’t have a clue. Even when Joe’s hard flesh stabbed at his asshole, he didn’t quite get it. It was one of Joe’s stupid jokes, another of his dumb pranks.

“The fuck? Cut that out, Joe!” His voice slurred in his own ears.

“You said you were cold, Billy. You cold now?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know. Shit, that hurts. Joe, stop it.” He swatted at Joe’s hands, but they didn’t let him go. He tried to turn around, but Joe had him pressed up tight against the wall.

“Relax, Billy, I’m gonna warm you up,” Joe said into his ear. “Just let me—unh! Fuck! ” Joe’s hips jerked hard against him, the pressure in his ass increased, and the burn shot up into his belly. Billy banged his head on the wall. Even his pickled brain could figure it out now. Joe just kept pushing, never letting up, and it hurt like hell, but Billy understood now. Billy fucked up, Joe fucked Billy. Like a goddamned equation.

He leaned his cheek on the wall and braced himself with his hands. They were okay. The fingertips of his left hand were a little sore, but not too bad. No bleeding tonight, because he hadn’t played that long today, and he’d had good bandages on all week and hadn’t picked at his calluses. Behind him, Joe was shoving in and out of Billy like it was something he’d been aching to do. Billy watched his own hand braced on the brick, saw his fingers tighten a little, saw his hand start to shake, then relax and hold still. In. Out. In again, maybe a little easier this time. Billy’s hand was still. He almost never got it to hold still, did he? He watched his hand, and after a bit he realized the burning in his ass wasn’t so bad.

Joe shoved hard, all the way in, and stopped for a moment, then he jerked and huffed and shot into Billy. That stung for a bit, but then it felt better. It was what Billy’d needed, something slick there to make it easier. It was wet, chilling him where it was dribbling out of him and down the backs of his legs, but he didn’t fucking care. Joe had softened some, but stayed in Billy, and now he moved in him, making little thrusts, getting hard again. Well, fuck, Joe was seventeen; if he was anything like Billy, he could probably do it four times in a row. So okay. Okay, Joe. Billy grunted and reached behind him and patted Joe’s hip.

“I knew you’d see it my way, Billiam,” Joe grunted, and Billy felt Joe’s teeth against the edge of his ear. “You’re good, you know. You feel so good, Billy.”

Billy’s head was clearing a little. He felt one of Joe’s hands let go of his hip and reach around and find his cock. Billy wasn’t very hard; he’d had too much booze, and then there’d been the burn when Joe pushed into him. When something hurt that bad, a guy couldn’t stay hard. But Joe’s hand on him felt good, touching his cock, cupping his balls, and Billy thought, maybe if we try it again when I’m not so bad off, and if we put something slippery there before Joe goes in, maybe it could even be good.

Showed what the fuck he knew.

* * *

Not that it ever really hurt too much physically after that first time. Joe wised up and bought lube, and unless he was really yanked off at Billy, he would be careful. He was even sort of sweet, sometimes, kissing Billy and sometimes even singing in his ear. Never Logos songs, always something fucking _nice_.

If Billy squirmed around until he could see Joe’s face, he’d see the usual mocking look there, but he wasn’t fooled. Joe talked a good game, but along with his charm he had a streak of decency that would show up at times like those, when he was getting what he wanted and Billy was giving it.

Joe’s voice sounded good in Billy’s ear, good in the way that would have let him sing other stuff besides punk on stage, even some not-so-angry stuff. Joe could have marketed himself down in the States, Billy thought, possibly even as a lead singer for a real good band, if he’d wanted.

Joe’s voice was deep and sure. It never cracked; it had gone deep at thirteen and never cracked even then. Joe could drink all night, he could smoke, he could snort coke till his nose streamed blood, he could scream his fucking lungs out on stage—and still his voice held up.

He didn’t go hoarse like ordinary people, and Billy figured Joe never would. Another thing he was wrong about.

Billy never really sang after they started Hard Core Logo. Billy only sang backup, and then only when he had to, or when he was moved to, when he just felt it, and he found Joe suddenly next to him, crowding him off his mike, while Joe’s mike stood ignored. Joe pressed against him and they spat into the mike together. Billy’s hands never stopped; they went on by themselves, sliding up and down the fretboard, thrashing the strings, making his axe wail.

Nights like that, they would get shitfaced together after the show, and neither one would be more drunk or stoned, and then when they tumbled into bed together they’d fuck as usual, but maybe do other stuff, too, and everything would be _equal_, for a change. Billy didn’t usually remember much about those nights, so he couldn’t say for sure what he’d done. If he woke with the taste of Joe in his mouth, he chalked it up to his drunken imagination.

Joe played rhythm when he remembered that he had a guitar in his hands. Billy’d taught him guitar, and had tried to do it right, teach him all the classics, but Joe hadn’t cared about those. Punk was everything. Punk and drugs and fucking Billy.

Joe had apparently thought it could go on forever. Stupid fuck.

***

In the old days, maybe it did seem like it was going to last forever. Billy figured he did what he had to, figured Joe knew he owed Billy something. Figured he knew Hard Core Logo wasn’t anything without Billy and that someday Billy would make it big, with Joe or without him.

At the time, Billy wanted it to be with Joe. Billy was a stupid fuck, too.

Billy had thought he might talk Joe into coming to the States with him, back when he’d first started thinking seriously about it, before Joe literally pissed away their chances for a Hard Core Logo record deal.

Before there was ever a talk of a big record deal, Billy could already read the writing on the wall. Back then, Billy used to think there was a chance of saving Joe Dick from himself. Fuck, Billy was an idiot to think that.

“Joe, look. We’re not kids anymore,” Billy said one time in a diner, when they were finishing up a long tour. The other guys had eaten quickly and gone back to the van to sack out, so it was just Joe and Billy, and they could talk. “We got to think about what we’re going to do next.”

“What do you mean, ‘next’?” Joe mocked. “This isn’t good enough for you, Billy? This is the life, man. Off the grid. We don’t have to answer to anybody but ourselves. Rock and roll, on the road, touring, recording once in a while. We already have it made.”

“Don’t you ever want anything more, Joe?”

“Like what? Be some stuffed-shirt, corporate ass-kisser working in a crappy job, living in the fucking suburbs, going home to the wife and two point four kids? That’s what _Daddy_ wanted me to do.” He gestured out the window, at the expanse of Saskatchewan farmland. “Or maybe you think I should farm? Drive a tractor all day harvesting wheat and sorghum, get drunk on weekends listening to some crappy country band, and take the little missus to church on Sunday?” He snickered.

Billy took a long drink of his coffee. Black, no sugar. Bitter, like Joe. “Ed says the grunge scene in Seattle is heating up and there’ll be more bands forming.”

“Grunge? You been listening to that crap?”

“I like some of the guitar sounds coming out of Seattle,” Billy admitted. “Ed says he sees signs the punk scene is winding down.”

“I don’t want you talking to Ed Fucking Festus on your own, Billy. Where the fuck does he get these crazy ideas?”

“He knows the business. Anyway, you know we don’t get the kind of bookings we used to.”

“Shit. He knows shit. 'The punk scene,'" he mimicked. "Real rock and roll ain’t about market forecasts and fucking corporate profits, and shit like that. Bookings have their ups and downs, always have. We’ve always rolled with it before, we’ll roll with it now.”

“I’m turning thirty, Joe,” Billy said. “I want to play guitar, but I also got to think about the future, about whether I could go somewhere with it. Someday.”

“Play guitar, Billy. Let me do the thinking. Ain’t nobody in Hollyweird USA going to take care of you the way I do.”

“Jesus, Joe….”

Joe gave him _that look_, that sweet look in his blue eyes, snapped his gum, and brushed his knuckles possessively across Billy’s jaw. And then when Billy stupidly didn’t knock Joe’s hand away, Joe got bolder, and brushed his knuckles against Billy’s lips.

Billy got the message. Joe didn’t like this conversation, Joe felt Billy slipping out of his grasp, so Joe was going to make Billy his bitch tonight. Well, fuck that. Billy’d always had excellent musical timing. When Joe swiped his hand by a third time, Billy opened his mouth at the right moment and bit down hard.

Joe yowled and whacked Billy on the side of his head with his free hand. It hurt like fuck-all, but Billy held on for a long moment, till Joe got the fucking message, and then he sneered and let go.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Billiam!” Joe’s uninjured hand came around again, but Billy ducked, throwing Joe off balance and sidestepping neatly as Joe hit the deck.

“Fuck you, Billy! I am going to fuck you!”

Well, thank you, Joe. Now everybody in the fucking diner knows.

Billy went to the counter and paid his check, then got out of there fast. The lady behind the counter took his money, gave him his change, but didn’t meet his eyes. He saw that one of her hands hovered near the phone. She was about ten seconds from calling the cops, he figured. Probably thought he and Joe were going to fight it out right there.

Not a chance, Lady.

Billy’s knuckles still ached from the last brawl, and anyway he didn’t think a fight would take care of it this time. He was going to get fucking pissed drunk tonight, and then Joe would roll him over and fuck his ass. No, the lady in the diner didn’t have a thing to worry about.

He went out and headed back to their bus, and if his feet dragged a little, probably nobody saw or cared. Billy didn’t care. It wasn’t like Billy was any stronger than anyone else Joe got his claws in.

Joe Dick got what he wanted. End of story.

***

Joe didn’t let Billy fuck _him_. It didn’t work that way, Joe said. Joe did other stuff. He got Billy off with his hands, sometimes while he was fucking him, sometimes after. Once he even tried to give Billy a blow job, but he was too coked up and couldn’t breathe through his damn nose. “Too much blow, no job,” Billy said that time, and they laughed themselves silly.

Billy didn’t suck cock, at least not that he ever remembered. He didn’t jerk Joe off, either, he just let Joe do him. Billy wasn’t fucking gay, not that that ever mattered to Joe.

Billy didn’t know what Joe was, and he didn’t fucking care, thank you very much. Once in a while, Joe fucked groupies, but most of the time he acted like he didn’t even see them. Most of the time, he acted like he didn’t see anyone except Billy. In fact, Joe would find groupies for Billy, like some kind of rock and roll pimp, or maybe more like Billy was his trained dog and Joe was throwing him treats. Joe needed to make sure Billy would come to heel when Joe called.

Billy slept with groupies if they interested him, and especially if they were _nice_ to him, but he usually didn’t bring them into his hotel room, if there was one. Those times when they didn’t have to sleep in the van or in some run-down band house, Billy always shared a hotel room with Joe, in the beginning because they couldn’t afford separate rooms, and later because one or both of them were usually too fucked up on booze or drugs to make bunking alone safe. Or that’s what they said. Either way, when Billy stumbled back to their room, Joe was always awake and waiting for him and usually wanting his ass, too.

Half the time, Billy was too drunk to care, and he just rolled over and let Joe do what he wanted.

Sometimes, on the verge of sleeping, he’d feel Joe’s mouth on the back of his neck or on his shoulder, and he’d know—_Joe needs me_, and he’d feel strong, he’d feel in charge, like maybe he could do anything, because he _knew_, he fucking knew Joe Dick needed him in a way that Billy didn’t need Joe.

For Billy, Joe was like a touchstone, a record of where he’d been and how far he’d come from there. Joe was like a mirror, maybe like part of Billy. Billy could look into those blue eyes and see all the way back to when they were thirteen and just happy to be alive and goddamn happy to be together.

How could you not love someone you had that kind of history with? They’d planned, and played music, and Billy still thought there was nothing better than sitting and writing songs with Joe, listening to Joe spin his tall tales and sitting there with his fingers ghosting over the strings, letting them find music for Joe’s hard-edged poetry.

***

Billy dredged himself up out of sleep one morning in the middle of a tour, back when they stayed in decent hotels, to find Joe already awake. Joe was lying next to him, propped up on one elbow, looking at him.

“What makes you think I love you, you little dink?” Joe said.

Billy blinked. It wasn’t unusual for Joe to come up with screwball statements first thing in the morning, but that one knocked him for a loop. Joe had to be reacting to something that had happened earlier, but Billy didn’t remember much about the night before. That wasn’t so unusual, either.

“What the fuck?” he said.

“Just answer the question, _Billy_,” Joe hissed.

“What makes you think you think you don’t, Joe? Seems to me you’re always the one running after me to get your rocks off.”

“Pussy.”

“Am not.”

“Yes, you are. Such a _girl_, Billy. Want hearts, flowers, eh? Came to the wrong fuckin’ place for that, Billy-girl.” He shoved over, half on top of Billy, chest across chest with the sheet partly between them, but Billy could feel his heat through the rough cotton.

“Don’t want them, Joe.” Billy was breathing hard under Joe’s weight and sweating, sweating. The sheet was damp under him. The bed had bad springs, and one was digging into Billy’s hip.

“Then what _do_ you want, Billiam? Fame and fortune?”

“Maybe.”

Joe snorted. “Fuck. It’s too early for this. I need a fucking drink.”

“It’s eight o’clock in the morning, Joe. Thought I was the fucking alcoholic.”

“You are.”

“Yeah, well, oddly enough, I want coffee. Breakfast. You to get off me.” He heaved under Joe. “Get the fuck off me, Joe.”

“Not just yet.”

“_Off_, Joe.”

Joe whipped the sheet down. He was naked and he was hard, and he was looking at Billy the way the bum on the streetcorner looked at a bottle of hooch.

“You son of a—” Billy struggled to get up, but Joe’s hand snaked out and caught his wrist, grinding the bones together.

“Shit! Ow! Joe, for God’s sake—let go of my fucking wrist!” Billy went limp in Joe’s grip. Fucking idiot could break Billy’s wrist like this, and then who would play guitar for the goddamned band?

“Hold still, Billy,” Joe said dangerously. “Hold still, and this won’t hurt a bit.” He rolled all the way on top of Billy, making the breath whoosh out of Billy’s chest.

“Joe, don’t. Come on.”

“Sorry, Billiam. Gotta prove what a big pussy you are first.” He shoved a finger into Billy’s ass, just like that.

Billy gasped. He wasn’t dry. He was wet like he’d already been lubed. Fuck. He vaguely remembered being pushed down on the bed the night before. Fuck.

“Yeah,” Joe was muttering in his ear. “Yeah, Billy. You’re mine. You’re my pussy and you’re going to say it.”

“Won’t,” Billy said. Another of Joe’s fingers stabbed into him like a punishment.

“Sure you will,” Joe crooned. “Maybe not with your pretty mouth. But the rest of you is saying it just fine.” Joe squirmed around, pinning one of Billy’s legs with his bigger, muscular ones, and jerking his chin downward. “Well, look at that.”

Billy looked. His cock was hard. So? “I just woke up. Joe, you dink.”

“It’ll shoot just the same,” Joe said, wrapping his hand around Billy’s cock and pumping it, hard, staying just this side of pain.

Billy jerked his knee up, hitting Joe in the ribs. Joe grunted, but didn’t miss a beat. He put his hand up under Billy’s balls, lifting them out of the way, tilted his hips, and drove his cock into Billy in two quick strokes.

“Ow, dammit!” Billy leaned up to try to bite Joe’s ear, but he didn’t have enough leverage.

“C’mon, Billy. You know you love it.”

Fuck it. Billy relaxed back on the pillow and let Joe jerk around in him. Really, who the fuck cared? Billy was tough; he could take it. Billy always took it.

Joe was sweating, breathing hard. He jacked Billy’s cock in rhythm with his thrusts.

“Damn you, Joe,” Billy breathed, feeling pleasure wash over him. Why should this feel so good, damn it, when Joe was simply getting his own way as always?

“You’re mine,” Joe growled into his ear. “Billy’s mi-ine,” he crooned, like he was talking to himself.

Billy barked out a laugh and opened his legs to make it easy, wrapping them around Joe’s waist. He jabbed Joe’s ass with his bony heels, urging him on. Yeah, he saw it all now. “You do love me Joe,” he said breathlessly as Joe pounded him.

“Says you,” Joe gasped, but the fight was clearly gone out of him. “Oh, fuck. Fuck, Billy, you’re…”

Billy clenched his ass around Joe and moved with him. Joe’s callused hand was rough on Billy’s cock, but it felt great, made Billy feel alive in a way that he usually only felt on stage, with the music pounding through his chest and the guitar thrumming under his fingers.

Joe’s cock inside him made him feel plugged in, like he was part of something greater than himself. Billy knew. He knew, now. He pulled Joe in tighter with his legs.

Joe’s thrusts started to lose the rhythm. He was close.

Billy, too. Billy was going to come first. He rocked his hips, and Joe banged against that place inside him that sent an electric jolt of pleasure up his spine. “Fuck, Joe!” Joe’s hand tightened on him like Joe was reading his thoughts, or maybe Billy’s body gave him away. Joe’s thumb rasped over the tip of Billy’s cock, and that was it—Billy froze, white-hot pleasure shot through him, and he came hard, spurting onto Joe’s chest and hand. He felt his ass squeezing Joe tight, tighter.

Fuck!” Joe shouted, and filled Billy with heat. “Fuck, you little pussy. You’re mine.” He let out a long sigh and dropped his head onto Billy’s shoulder. “You’re mine, Billy. Always have been, always will be.” His scruffy Mohawk tickled Billy’s neck.

Billy shoved at him. “Fuck, you’re heavy, asshole. C’mon, roll off me.”

Joe coughed, loud in Billy’s ear, then slowly pulled out and rolled off Billy, collapsing next to him, sweaty and still breathing hard.

Billy grinned and smacked Joe’s shoulder with the flat of his hand. “You’re a goddamn liar, Joe. You’re a terrible bandleader, you suck at guitar, and you sure as hell suck at friendship. But you fucking love me.”

Joe snorted. “I need a fucking cigarette.”

“You fucking love me, Joe.”

For once in his life, Joe Dick didn’t shoot back a smart answer.

***

There were times when being with Joe was worth getting fucked up the ass, even if other people looked at Billy and knew.

John knew. Pipe was fucking oblivious as usual, but John watched, John noticed shit. Half the time he was too fried to make sense of what he saw, but sometimes he did, and once on the shoulder of an empty stretch of Manitoba highway, he saw Joe grab Billy by the neck and reel him in and kiss him. If it hadn’t gone any further, it might have been forgotten, but Joe had the devil in him that time, for whatever reason—probably something Billy’d fucked up on stage the night before, or something terrible he’d said that Joe hadn’t taken out sufficiently on Billy’s jaw. Joe pushed Billy up against the side of the van and dry-humped him.

Maybe it was supposed to be punishment, but to Billy it felt the same as Joe’s possessive affection, and he didn’t let it bother him. By then, Billy was so used to Joe’s strong hand cupping the back of his neck that he just spread his legs and let Joe do it, and maybe rocked his hips a little, too. Joe shoved up against him, grunting, and actually came in his jeans. Billy didn’t come, but when Joe turned him around and kissed him again, deep and sloppy and wet, Billy felt it all the way from the soles of his feet to the top of his head, and he was breathing hard when Joe shoved him back into the van. Billy knew he’d get the real thing later.

John cornered him about it that night after the gig, all shocked and concerned, like this was the first he’d heard about Billy getting fucked by Joe. Billy wanted to shake him, but he’d probably rattle something important loose from John’s never-too-stable brain. And he wasn’t going to do that. Not only had John never fucked him, never hurt him, never cheated him, but Billy’d been in that building John had been stuck in and he wouldn’t want to send a dog back there. Billy had been there of his own will, just earning some dough in one of the more stupid ways he’d ever done, but John had been…what did they call it? An inmate? A patient. Maybe both. Billy didn’t want John ever to have to go back there.

So he tried to sit him down quietly and explain, when John was calm and he’d had his lithium and whatever else. “What did you think I meant all those times when I said Joe lives to fuck me?”

“Fuck you over, like he does everybody,” John said dully. “That’s what I thought.”

“Yeah, well. That, too,” Billy said. “Always that, too.”

Maybe John forgot that conversation, but he sure as hell knew after the gig in Toronto, the last gig before the breakup, when Billy wasn’t taking any more of Joe’s shit, and they had it out, a little too goddamned loud, backstage before the concert. Billy tore up his knuckles on Joe’s face, broke Joe’s damn nose that night, and they never ended up playing at all. The club owner kicked them out, disgusted, and made them pay for their drinks and their hotel. Billy didn’t fucking care. He’d discovered what it took to loosen Joe’s fucking death grip on him, and he felt like a goddamn champion.

He packed up his things and got on a plane back home to Vancouver, and by the time Joe and the guys would have got back with the van, Billy was in Seattle, heading for Ed Festus’ office. Ed had told him “anytime,” and Billy was taking him up on it, ready to audition. Just before he played his first substitute gig with a grunge band, he had fucking “Champion” tattooed on his right arm, to remind him.

***

Joe had kept his distance on this “reunion” tour, probably realizing this wasn’t the same old Billy he was dealing with, the one who’d been Joe’s bitch. Joe apparently realized it was going to take some serious liquor to reel Billy back in, and he poured and poured.

Billy was stinking drunk that night in—was it Winnipeg? The last couple of days weren’t that clear. When Billy heard from Jenifur that they wouldn’t need him after all, he’d gotten so drunk he almost fell over right on stage. Joe kicked his ass, made him stand up straight, but that wasn’t punishment, it was just what Billy needed to keep going. It was actually buddies.

When they’d talked later in the restaurant, it had been almost like the good parts of the old days, and Billy had even enjoyed it. He didn’t like it when Joe took the two hookers back to his room, but he saw it as a sign: Joe was accepting that things were different between them. If Joe got his rocks off tonight, it wasn’t going to be in Billy’s ass, because Billy wasn’t his fucking _pussy_ any more. Good, Billy thought. Maybe Joe only did women now. That would be good.

It wasn’t till morning that Billy found out what had really gone down. The girls fucked off with the band’s money, nobody got laid, and Joe was so burned that Billy thought he might go and kill something. Turned out Joe couldn’t get it up for the hookers at all.

Maybe Billy realized what that meant, but he acted like he didn’t. “Told you to lay off the coke, Joe,” was all he said, even though he knew coke had nothing to do with it. Anyway, it was too fucking early to start a fight before coffee. He went out to find a cash machine. Fucking Bruce shoved a camera in his face as he was walking down the street, and Pipe walked up and took Billy’s last cigarette right out of Billy’s goddamn mouth. Billy was left wondering what gods he’d pissed off.

If he’d known at that moment how much worse it was about to get, Billy would have kept right on walking, all the way to LA.

***

The scene Billy had left last night in Edmonton was eerily like the scene he’d left behind in Toronto nearly five years ago. Joe’d gained a few pounds, and his face looked a little old for that punk-ass Mohawk. But otherwise everything was still the same. It was terrifying if you thought about it. Like those guys were in some kind of fucked-up time warp in a horror flick.

Billy had walked away from that scene. He sure as hell wasn’t going back there now when there wasn’t anything to go back to.

Joe Dick had always fucked Billy when he didn’t get what he wanted. He fucked Billy behind the bar in Vancouver in 1978, and he fucked Billy in Toronto before Billy left for LA the first time, and in between Joe fucked Billy from one end of Canada to the other, and at selected venues in the States.

But last night in Edmonton, when Joe beat Billy up on stage and then destroyed the ‘59 Strat, Billy packed his duffle and his remaining guitar and said he was leaving.

Joe put his hand on Billy’s hip and said, “C’mere, Billy, I got something for you,” like he’d done in the old days just about every time he fucked Billy. He was holding the bottle of whiskey he’d had on stage when the fight started, still with a few ounces left in it. He took his hand off Billy’s hip and snagged two clean glasses off the bar. Raised his eyebrows.

Billy slung his duffle over his shoulder and picked up the case holding his old guitar. Not this time, Joe.

Billy had somewhere to be.

Somewhere they weren’t going to hit him when he got there. Somewhere they sure as hell weren’t going to fuck him.

Last night, Billy turned around and looked Joe Dick in the eye for the final time, and Billy said no.

***

Billy sighed, punched his pillow, and settled back. He wanted another drink, but fuck that; he had a contract to sign in the morning. He was going to have the life he wanted and the success he deserved, and goddamn Joe Dick wasn’t going to stop him. Certainly not now, when Joe Dick had nothing more to hold over him, ever.

What was that stupid thing Joe used to say sometimes when he was drinking out of anger, trying to hold back from kicking some idiot’s face in…one shot and _salut_? Yeah.

It was nothing worth getting bent over. It wasn’t worth getting shitfaced over, and it sure as hell wasn’t worth ruining Billy’s life over, just because he had some nostalgia for who they could’ve been, who they maybe should’ve been. Probably was mostly in Billy’s alcoholic imagination, anyway. He didn’t need to waste any more sleep over it.

He’d taken Joe up the ass for the last time—that was all that gunshot was. Just one last fuck, courtesy of Joe Dick. Billy’d gotten over _that_ a thousand times.

He wrapped his arms around himself to stop the shakes and went to sleep.

  


—end—

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [HCL fanfic exchange](http://hcl-fic.livejournal.com/), 2006.


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